Stats from Baseball Reference
Payroll info from USA Today

+1000

awesome stuff. i don’t really have anything to add. great read.

although, i do have to say, cin should probably be ranked ahead of col, considering the ball park factor, and…

just kidding.

I always heard that instead of the 1st 60 wins and 60 losses were free, that it was “you win 1/3, you lose 1/3, and your record is really based on the other 1/3 of the games.” What do the numbers look like if you change it to 54, 54, and 54? Is there a big difference?

It’s funny that the top ten are clubs I’ve associated with the perception of “here lies good baseball.” Except for San Francisco. I’m surprised Arizona is so low.

Somewhat OT, an anecdote of what might be coming up for the Cubs. Will they drop below the Yankees on your adjusted chart? Hmm.

Sometime during the long 2007 season (as the Cardinals hovered at or below .500) I tried to lift my spirits by putting together a table of NL wins for the decade. I’ve updated it a few times. It looks pretty clear that we’ll edge Atlanta for the decade. (It wasn’t obvious at the start of 2008).

This led me to think about a variety of ways to capture why this has been a great decade for Cardinals fans. You’ve definitely hit on some of the big ones: One is the sheer number of wins. A second is making it to the LCS and WS (with a win, of course). A third is watching the greatest player of the era day and day out.

 Here are a few other possible yardsticks that it would be interesting to check:

1) Total playoff game victories. IOne could simply use total playoff games, but I like this better because sweeps (see Cubs 07 or 08; Cards WS 04) count as 0. It takes into account both opportunity and success at the same time. I complied this at one point and the Cardinals were pretty far ahead in the NL for the decade. The measure is redundant to some extent with what you’ve done (PO, LCS, etc.), but it captures a bit more of the excitement—it is a way to quantify the fact that winning the LDS is satisfying, or coming close in the LCS counts).

2) Being in the playoff hunt—these are hard to collect, but interesting:
a) Number of days in the decade spent in first place in the division (or % of days)
b) Number of days within 3 gb (or better) of a playoff spot (division or WC) (or %)
c) Average gb, averaged over all days in the decade

All of these measures reveal more than number of wins, because they capture the competitive dimension. Using these measures, the 2003, 2006, 2007, and 2008 teams fare well even though the teams did not win a lot of games.

I understand what the purpose is of this study, but I disagree with your terminology slightly. It looks like your basing a lot of your definition of “success” on being both successful in regular season wins and being “profitable”. Well, correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe all teams in Major League Baseball are profitable. There isn’t one franchise losing money or even coming close to losing money, so I think the better way to say what your looking for is “which team is the most efficient”?

But, ultimately I have an issue with any study that finds Oakland to be the best baseball franchise and has Florida in the top 5 while teams like the Yankees and the Red Sox aren’t even in the top 5. Bottom line, those teams (although the Yankees are quickly fading in these regards) win games and they win post season games. And in the Red Sox case, they win championships.

But, like I said, I realized what you’re not looking for actual “success” that will put hardware in the trophy case or asses in the seats. You’re looking a what teams win the most regular season games while being the most frugal. So, I guess in this regards, nice job. You did a lot of work and it definitely shows.

Hopefully at the end of next year you will be able to determine which team really is the most successful franchise of the decade…(crossing my fingers for the Cardinals!!!)

here.

if you only looked at teams in any given year who made the playoffs? After all, the illusion is that we root for teams we hope to actually see play in October.

FYI, I know you said not to quibble w/ this but replacement-level wins for a team is far lower than 60. It’s around 42, or maybe 47, if I remember correctly. I’ll try looking it up. In any case, is it fair that the Yankees and Red Sox finish toward the bottom of studies like these solely b/c of having high incomes? I don’t think so. After all, they’ve been the best 2 teams of the previous 9 years. Just as there’s a replacement-level # of wins, shouldn’t there also be a maximum # of wins a team should be expected to get. In other words, the Yankees and Sox are basically punished for not winning more games b/c of their payroll yet they’ve won more than 90 games per season. Would it have been possible for them to have won 140? Certainly not. What’s the maximum? I don’t know but there ought to be some credit given for coming as close as possible to the maximum.

Maybe there’s a range of possible wins — from 42 (or whatever) to 120 or something like that and so we should measure $ per possible win or something like that. Obviously I’m just going off-the-cuff right now but there should be some sort of acknowledgement that no one’s going to win 140 games, or 180 or whatever.

all give a slightly different insight. in the end bb is simply a competition among very few teams (i.e., divisions) for playoff spots. spending in the nl central and al east can’t really be compared on a per win basis. winning to a playoff level in the al east is simply more expensive. looking at the data in forbes, there is also some data regarding whether teams are paying off their stadiums or not. cubs are not, cards are. substantial difference (i did a fan post on this several months ago). in addition cards are in transition and diverting more gross revenues to the farm system (more teams) and paying bonuses to drafted and undrafted free agents. what i find most interesting is that even on an overall $/win basis, what we all know about teams like the twins is true, ie, that they manage to compete with a relatively low payroll. what they haven’t managed is to win the big one, which is when they go up against higher payroll teams in the al in particular. overall, smart is good, rich and smart is better (see sox, red). mo has his work cut out for him!

And there are fewer and fewer teams being fleeced on trades because of wiser GMs that are post moneyball.